“I’m scared about what is in these.” She glanced up. “Will you stay while I open them?”
“Of course we will.”
“Is there an order to them?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
She nodded. And then she carefully opened one of the envelopes. Extracting the letter, she lifted the single fold of creamy high-quality stationery. As she absorbed the words intended for her, her eyes went back and forth slowly.
Her tears dropped onto her jeans.
That was the way of it. One after the other, she read each of the three letters, her eyes moving faster and faster. When she finished the last one, she sat back. The tissue paper ball was in her hand, but she seemed to have forgotten everything around her.
Qhuinn didn’t move. Neither did Blay.
He wasn’t sure any of the three of them were breathing.
And then the words, so soft, so sad… and yet wondrous, too.
“He loved me,” she whispered. “He said he loved me, and only me.”
Her eyes rose, and they were luminous with complex emotion.
Qhuinn nodded at her. “Yes, he did. And I’m glad.”
“He said he would have married me if he could have.” She frowned. “But the writing is different on this one. Was this right as he was having the heart attack?”
“May I?”
When she gave him the letter, once again it was a shock to see that handwriting of his brother’s—but she was right. The script was messy. And the letter was short.
Qhuinn imagined it had been written as the lessers had stormed the house. Had Luchas been hearing the screams of their parents, their sister, their doggen, as he scribbled this all? And the message was plainly stated. He loved Anna Sophia Laval and he had decided to tell his parents that he was going to be with her, if she would have him.
If he survived the attack, Qhuinn tacked on to himself.
But that was not to be—and not because their mahmen and father would not allow him.
It was the start of the nightmare.
Yet it was good to know that Luchas had broken free of their upbringing, just as Qhuinn had. Maybe duress and the threat of death had done it, but in the end, he had chosen love over heritage—and Qhuinn was choosing to believe that the conviction would have stuck if the family had survived.
“This is beautiful,” Qhuinn said as he returned the letter to its owner.
Anna Sophia took the missive back… and then her hand dipped under the collar of her sweater. As she pulled out a gold cross, he thought of his little grapefr
uit session with Lassiter.
“You know what,” he murmured, “I personally believe that love is immortal, that love abides even after death. And I know that Luchas is up in Heaven, and he’s waiting for you there. At the end of your course, I believe you and he will be reunited.”
Because the fallen angel who watched over the Fade was going to have it no other way.
Her eyes shimmered. “Thank you for saying that.”
“Will you open his gift to you? You don’t have to, but—”
“Oh, yes.”
She tucked the letters under her hip, and struggled with the Scotch tape and the tissue. When she got the tangle free, she gasped.